Economic spotlight: Watch these clues on job creation in February

For a hint at what Friday’s U.S. employment report might offer, payroll processor ADP weighs in Wednesday with its estimate of how many private-sector jobs were created in February.

But it’s just a hint. In six of the past seven months, ADP has posted higher employment growth than the government’s official tally. In a few cases, the gap was especially large, such as in December. ADP initially reported a 238,000 gain compared with the Labor Department’s 74,000 estimate, which also includes government jobs.

Still, the ups and downs in ADP’s monthly total do closely mimic the trend in the Labor Department’s report. So pay attention to the change in direction.

Wall Street expects ADP to report an increase of about 160,000 jobs in February. Labor Department data is expected to show a gain of 143,000 new jobs. The ADP report comes out at 8:15 a.m. Eastern Time.

Another clue on job creation might be found in the service-sector index produced by the Institute for Supply Management. The index includes an employment gauge that bears a strong relationship to actual hiring patterns.

The employment index totaled a healthy 56.4% in January, and a similar number for February would strongly suggest that the government’s own jobs report is about to take a turn for the better. The ISM report comes out at 10 a.m Eastern.

Later in the afternoon, the Federal Reserve will release its Beige Book summary of economic conditions around the country. The report is likely to find that the U.S. economy continued to grow early in 2014 but suffered some setbacks because of unusually harsh winter weather.